Dark Innocence
by Breech Loader
Summary: Shadow may have lived for a long time, but his experience is short. He's never understood the way his body works, or the more complicated emotions. But now they've forced their way into his life. Terrified and confused, he runs to the one person who might understand his predicament - Amy Rose.


Dark Innocence

By Breech Loader

* * *

Breech: A one-shot regarding how young Shadow is in experience, despite his body maturity... It's a little disturbing and weird.

* * *

"You… you were the only one I felt I could come to…" Shadow muttered, staring at his feet.

Amy Rose Blossom looked at the black and red hedgehog. She'd never seen him like this… so uncertain. Shadow the Hedgehog had been built as a walking genocide. He had wiped entire races off the map, shot his way through armies, faced down hideous monsters and torn apart gods. Him in her room, with tremors running through his sleek, well-toned body, was not something she'd thought she'd ever see, "What's wrong, Shadow?" she asked him.

"Nothing's wrong!" he looked up, his red eyes blazing for a moment before he hesitated, "Well… a little wrong…"

"Uh-huh…" Amy smiled, staying calm herself, "Well… why'd you come talk to me?"

"Well… I heard you used a wish on that Power Ring to get older," Shadow looked even more uncomfortable, "Like, you were 8 and you… got… older?"

Amy blushed, "Yeah, that worked out… differently to how I'd expected."

"Well, um…" Shadow looked increasingly scared now, "Professor Gerald… when he woke me up, I was made at full physical maturity. My… my biological age is 20 years old."

"Ooooh…" Amy didn't know if she liked where this was going.

"And I spent about a year on the ARK… being tested… being trained… making friends with Maria…" he smiled briefly, then looked embarrassed, "But straight away I was always getting these… feelings."

"What kind of feelings?" Amy asked him, although she could guess.

"Down low," he mumbled, "Waking up… sticky. And sweaty. I told Professor Gerald and he told me to… to ignore them. They kept getting in the way of training and he told me they were natural but he… well, it was like he was ashamed of me…"

Amy was starting to understand. Shadow hadn't grown into physical maturity. He had been created… hatched… awoken… at that stage in his development. There was a good reason people took 15 to 18 years to reach puberty, be he hadn't been given that time, "Well, uh…"

"Are you ashamed of me too?" he asked, nervous.

Amy blushed, "No!" she told Shadow. He had never looked at her in this way before, "You've been awake for… three years now?" she checked.

"Yes," he answered, "I'm still having the same feelings I had then. And I'm…" he shuddered, "Scared…"

It would be so easy to tell Shadow that all these feelings were perfectly natural. But Amy knew they weren't. Not for him. It took normal boys by surprise when they had 15 years of perfectly normal life experience. It had totally unnerved her, and now she couldn't be so sure that skipping four years of her life had been such a good idea. Shadow's entire life had been nothing but war and pain. He had no better experiences to compare these to.

"Well, it's a normal body function," Amy admitted slowly, "And it can be scary when it happens. I sure got weirded out the first time I had a period..."

"What's a 'period'?" Shadow asked.

"It's this thing when I got older," Amy replied, blushing again, "About once a month, I… bleed. It's perfectly natural, but it really scared me at first. Now I just use tampons."

"You mean once a month I'm going to have a period? I'm so overdue!" Shadow jumped up, "Oh, Chaos! We need to get a load of those tampons!"

"Shadow, calm DOWN!" Amy took his hands, "There is no way, under _any_ circumstances, that you will ever need, nor be able to use, tampons," Shadow blinked, "Never, ever, _ever_," she repeated, "It's a girl thing, just like what happens to you at night is a boy thing."

"You're sure? Well…" Shadow looked uncomfortable, "I never understood any of this," he muttered, "I thought you could help because you've skipped years of emotional development too. But now I see how ignorant I really am…"

"It's not your fault, Shadow," Amy tried to console him, "And it's not really ignorance…" No. It seemed more like innocence. Not a word that could usually be attributed to Shadow, but in this case… perhaps it could be the best word.

"Perhaps not… but that's not the real problem," Shadow looked down, "Rouge is always calling me 'handsome'. And when she looks at me, it feels different for me. I don't understand why… But then last night…"

Now Amy felt _really_ worried as the full meaning of Shadow's story started to sink in.

"Last night she… touched me, and started to..." Shadow's red eyes filled up with tears, "She was touching me and my body liked it but I was so scared… I didn't know what to do! I'm the Ultimate Lifeform! Why am I scared of her? I don't understand, I don't…"

"You mean she-"

"She touched me, and she liked it, and she asked me if I liked it, and my body felt good so I said yes, but… I hated it… I hated how she was… just taking all my control away from me…" Shadow hung his head, "She kept telling me what to do… because I didn't know any of it. I felt so stupid. And then… and then we…"

Amy watched in horror as he broke down in tears. She hugged him and he shuddered like a frightened child in her arms, "Shadow, it's okay, I'm not going to do anything like that."

"You don't understand!" he wept, shivering, "It hurt! I mean, not like pain, but… I didn't want it! Not with her! Not with anybody! She said it was okay to be afraid on your first time, but I'm still afraid – of her!" he shuddered, "And I scrubbed… and scrubbed… and I still feel dirty…"

Amy saw him looking at his skin and fur. It was nearly scoured clean of fur in places, "Oh, Shadow…"

"I don't feel right…" he wrapped his arms around his body, "I feel… like there's a hole… and I don't even know what's missing…"

"Um… maybe you should get some sleep," Amy told him, standing up, "Here, cuddle up in my bed. I'm just going out for a little while…"

"But… you'll come back?" Shadow asked.

He looked so _scared_. Not himself at all. Amy nodded, "I'll come back."

* * *

*SMACK*

Rouge gasped, staring at Amy. The pink hedgehog had just brought a stinging slap to her face.

"What is _wrong_ with you?!" Amy asked the bat-girl, "Shadow trusts you!"

"What are you talking about?" Rouge asked her loftily, "He's my partner… my friend, not yours."

"I mean what you did to him yesterday!" Amy retorted, "Now he's crying back at my place because he's so scared of you!"

"Quite apart from the fact that my personal life is none of your business, I didn't hurt Shadow," Rouge sneered, "We made out, and I gave him a blow. Then we had sex. I didn't hurt him."

"You don't get it, do you?" Amy asked, "You're so shallow and slutty, you can't see the difference between having sex with a man, and having sex with a child who looks like a man. Shadow acts big and tough, but that's because he doesn't know how else to be!"

Rouge looked uncomfortable, "He didn't fight back. Sure, he was virgin, but everybody is at some-"

"He doesn't know what to do with those feelings!" Amy replied, "Now he's really scared of you! So… just stay away from him!"

Rouge prepared to tell Amy that she was just all heated up about her own insecurities as Sonic's non-existent girlfriend, when the pink hedgehog's words sank in. She remembered Shadow's nervous expression as they had carried out the various acts, and then how rarely the hedgehog showed fear. Suddenly she just felt _sick_ at herself.

* * *

Amy returned a couple of hours later, to find that Shadow now lay asleep in her bed, twisted in the sheets.

But he kept on tossing and turning so much that he certainly didn't _look_ asleep. While Amy believed Rouge when the bat had told her she hadn't hurt Shadow or forced him… Shadow bordered on being an emotional cripple, and he couldn't possibly hope to understand what had happened between them. And he confirmed Amy's belief in the way that he twisted and lashed out in his sleep, breathing rapidly and clawing at the air.

She grabbed his shoulders and started to shake him.

"It's a dream, Shadow! Nothing but a dream!" she shouted. He didn't wake up, and she shone a light in his eye to make him blink, "Wake up!"

Confused, the dark hedgehog sat up slowly, tears rolling down his cheeks. When he looked up at Amy and finally recognised her, he hid his face in his hands.

"I don't understand," he mumbled, "Why did… what was I feeling…" he looked down and they both blushed to see the mess between his thighs. He wailed at the sight of it, and threw himself away from his hostess, lying face-down, "I hated it! Why does it…"

Amy untangled his legs from the sheets and freed him, "Shadow, it's okay," she silently praised Chaos for decent sex-ed classes. Those poor men and their slavish subservience to their genitals… okay, it wasn't quite like that, but it probably did work out that way if your sex-ed teacher was related to Doctor Robotnik. She stroked Shadow on the back, "Calm down…"

Shadow looked up at her, shame on his tear-streaked face, "It's something to do with sex," he repeated, "But why don't I feel like any of it is right?"

"Well, you weren't exactly..."

"Am I broken? Oh, Chaos!" he grabbed her Riders top, "No! I've seen what happens to broken experiments! Don't leave me alone, Amy!"

_Well, that's new..._ So long as she'd known him, Shadow had been fine with being alone, "Shadow, you're not broken, I swear it!" Amy took his hands off her shirt, "It's not happening because you're broken. It's just something that happens."

Shadow rested his head on her chest, listening to her heartbeat, "Why is this happening to me?"

"Probably because whoever made you didn't want to leave anything out," By now, Amy had become certain that Shadow should never come to her for help. What could she possibly do? "Please don't-" Finally she wrapped her arms around him and shifted him to look into her emerald eyes, "You'll always be safe now. I promise."

"You... you promise?" he asked her, his eyes wide and hopeful.

"I promise," she repeated.

The dark hedgehog buried his face in her lap and wept like a child.

* * *

Breech: I know it's a bit weird, and Shadow's really fucked up in this story, but I just felt like pointing it out – that Shadow's like, three years old or something and when it comes to sex, he's going to be hideously ignorant. Being physically ready for sex isn't the same thing as being emotionally ready.

How about you give me your opinion? And heckaroonies, read some of my other stuff while you're at it? I'm just so awesome...


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